Found Objects

You can get reacquainted with surprising things whenever you clean house. I remember the last time I cleaned out the closets. I managed to unearth numerous items of memorabilia. Here they are in no particular order: Different items of women's underwear, a 12 gauge shotgun, a guitar case, a pair of espadrilles (Which strongly implies that someone actually left without her shoes. Why don't I remember that?), a baseball bat, a woman's bathing suit, 2 tennis rackets (one of them being an old Jack Kramer woodie), a highly illegal Blue Dot softball that I attempted to smuggle into a softball game once, shotgun shells for the weaponry mentioned earlier on, a robe and surplice, and last but not least, a bottle of moonshine made by-no lie-an itinerant Baptist preacher in the Ozarks.

Who says I have lived a wasted life?

I cleaned out my old desk the other day. I bought the old rolltop about 20 years ago from Hambuchen Home Furnishings in Conway, Arkansas. I paid 400 bucks for it, which was a lot of money at the time. And while the process failed to produce anything so interesting as a jar of white lightning that was distilled by the clergy, there were some interesting relics.

I found tons of useless financial relics. Cancelled checks and the like. I lingered over those old checks, an ordinate number of them written mostly to various area liquor stores , and I marveled at how much my handwriting has changed. I used to have pretty good handwriting for a guy. This was the result of my engineer father's insistence that anything important must be printed. Now I am told by the people who are forced to decipher same that my writing is illegible. My signature nowadays could be the scrawl of an orangutan or a lunatic.

Speaking of writing, I found various items of correspondence. I found a letter from my mother asking me to confront my youngest brother about some "older woman" who Mother believed was leading John down the path to certain destruction. Being raised a Baptist, she felt comfortable viewing matters involving her sons in such starkly apocalyptic terms. And John being John, he was enjoying the trip down the path as I recall. In any event, the letter goes on to state that the reason that I was the best candidate to counsel Junior in these delicate matters was " because you are a mature man that knows how to handle women."

I had to pick myself up off the floor again just as I did when I read Mother's letter 15 years ago. I ought to frame it.

I found letters from my buddy Don, who was working on a tugboat for a ruffian named Captain Billy while studying for the Louisiana bar exam. I came across a series of letters written by an old girlfriend who was studying architecture in Italy. I found a copy of a letter that I had written to a woman who was concerned for my soul after reading a piece I had written for the old Arkansas Gazette. I wrote to decline her invitation to attend her church. She belonged to one of those huge non-denominational churches out in West Little Rock that subscribed then and now to a sort of "Brand X" theology. She thought that I would profit mostly from the Sunday night service where I could show up comfortably attired in mere "khakis and a short sleeve shirt."

I think it was the part about the short sleeve shirt that I found most offensive. Listen buddy, you might find a couple Lily of France bras in my closet. But you won't find any short sleeve dress shirts.

I found an old Agfa 35mm camera. The only thing I can figure is that it must have been given to me by my poor old crazy Aunt IdaBeth who watched "Hogan's Heroes" religiously and actually talked back to the television while doing so. She had lived in Germany with her equally crazy husband Donald who was stationed in the Air Force there. Agfa is a German camera. I would guess that they bought it at the PX. I made a mental note to see what I can get for it on e-Bay just in case there were still any lingering crazy vibes yet infused in it. I am not a particularly superstitious person but I believe craziness, like radioactivity, can be stored in objects. In any event, one can't be too sure about these things.

I found all sorts of pictures. I saw a picture of me from the Arkansas Gazette back when I was the student body president at Mabelvale Junior High. I was wearing my letter jacket. Which I also found in my closet earlier on. Finally, I ran across a picture of me with my old girlfriend LS. We are apparently at a dinner party. I deduce this from the fact that I am holding a plate and am captured in the moment of placing a fork thereto. LS has her hand on my forearm, as if to call my attention away from the grub. Her face is turning toward the camera. She is wearing a summerry cocktail dress that is cinched behind her neck beneath her long curly brown hair.

She looks so happy. She is so pretty.

In the picture, my hair, beard, eyelashes and eyebrows are bleached out from playing tennis on hardcourts in the blazing sun 3 to 4 times a week. I no longer play tennis other than fooling around with friends. My beard is gray and I have a lot less hair.

I ran into LS the other day. She pretty much looks the same, which is to say pretty great. In fact, I don't know what to attribute this to, but it seems that the women I have loved in this life haven't changed much over time. I know this cannot possibly be true and I also know that most of them, LS included, would guffaw at this notion. And she would give you chapter and verse of every line, every ding, and/or scar she has added to her chassis in the last 15 years.

But then again, it is only the good looking ones that keep an inventory.

The day after I cleaned out the desk I took the financial documents to the shredder service. The world has changed 360 degrees since I bought that old desk. I write very few checks any more. Most of my transactions are done on the Internet. I no longer get cancelled checks. The shredding service is over by the golf club to which I belong. I didn't play golf 20 years ago. Everything is changed.

All but one thing. Like I said, thanks to the lens of sentiment, to this day all of the women I have ever loved remain beautiful and resolutely changeless to me.

Who says I have lived a wasted life?